There has been provided an instrument developed by a Swiss physician, Dr. Maurice Fuchs, sold under the name "Syncardon" during the late 1940's, and described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,690,174. This instrument operated to increase circulation in a body part by augmenting arterial pulsatile blood flow thereof. For example, to increase blood flow in the foot a pneumatic cuff is placed around the thigh or calf and is inflated rhythmically in synchronism with the heartbeat by apparatus as described in the patent. The above-described instrument never achieved acceptance or commercial success. This was due, in large part, to the fact that the electronics and pneumatics of the instrument were sufficiently unreliable that considerable expertise was required to keep the apparatus in operation and the fact that the operator had no way of actually monitoring the increased blood flow in the affected part.
In the past ten years, somewhat similar devices have been built containing a balloon that is lodged in the aorta (invasive) or containing cuffs placed around body parts (non-invasive). Such a device is known as a "counterpulsation balloon pump" and has the object of reducing the load on the heart by adding an additional externally-powered pump to the action of the heart itself to thereby take some of the strain from the heart.
Accordingly, the state of the art is that there is no satisfactory device for the treatment of body areas suffering from circulation deficiency by promoting blood flow in these body areas.